Did being a CNA make you NOT want to be a nurse anymore?

Nursing Students CNA/MA

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I'm just curious, because I'm working as a CNA and am really having doubts about whether or not nursing is for me anymore. For now, I'll blame it on the fact that I'm new and am HATING life. I hope it improves. What was your experience?

For me I would have to say ABSOLUTELY. Me and my friend were both thinking to be nurses so I became a cna first to see if it is for me because I wasn't completely sure and didnt want to go through the trouble and then find out I didn't like it afterwards. I actually figured out nursing was not for me on my first week as a cna. I'm still a cna, but just as a job on the side of school now. However, I am on track to be a speech pathologist which I am excited and extremely interested in.

To the OP....being a CNA made me NOT want to be a CNA!! Being a nurse is a totally diff ballgame. I am a nurse now and i enjoy it. But i hated HATED being a CNA. Ugh!! Soooooo glad i got out of that. Although i will occasionally work as a CNA now that i am a nurse,which i dont mind doing because i do it when i WANT not because it my job description. No offense to all the CNA's out there, you guys are wonderful and deserve medals of honor, but i couldnt make a career out of it. Sorry.

Specializes in Forensic Psych.

Being a CNA has made me not want to work in a hospital! I'm still excited to be a nurse, but in a different setting. I already had an idea that it wasn't for me, but I wanted t make sure.

Im a CNA right now, and I love helping people, but it is a hard job. It is a alot of physical work, your body will get tired, and im only 20! There is just a lot of work to do, and i try to be fast at it but sometimes it does not work out. I am also in nursing school, I love to think critically and try to solve puzzles, so i am hoping that being a is better :)

I started being a CNA at a LTC facility in a nursing home and I make good money. It is a bit overwhelming that is why I am trying to go right into being a LPN. When the pay sucks and you are not happy with your life yeah you will definitely not want to be a nurse anymore. I want to become a mid wife but I don't want to do it anymore because of the schooling. Find a better job with cna. They are out there especially if you have at least a year experience. Good luck.

Yes. I've been working as a CNA for about 2 years now and it has made me not want to be a nurse. The healthcare field is like a cess pool for bullying. I got bullied so much by my co-workers when I first started, I started Googling "careers that don't involve working on a team". I know all facilities aren't like this and it has honestly gotten much better with my co-workers. But, more importantly, I notice the more and more I work as a CNA, the more I start to not care. I don't care about the residents as much as I used to. Not that I abuse them or anything, but I just notice my heart isn't there anymore. Now it's just a job. And I go home. I think in this field, you need a lot of heart and a lot of people are just in the healthcare field for the money and job reliability in this poor economy, and grow crabby attitudes like my co-workers the longer they work. I don't want to become that. The only reason I started as a CNA is because I wanted to be a nurse and I love (loved) caring for people. I remember thinking "wow, I can get paid just for being nice to people?! I do that all the time!", but now I've decided to go to school for foreign language study (Japanese, Chinese, Korean) and I couldn't be happier :) Just do what makes you happy.

What is it exactly about being a CNA that you don't like? I have been a CNA for coming up on two years, and while I have had the same feelings you are, I must say that I am relieved that I finally found a place to work that I actually enjoy coming to. I worked in a long term care facility and hated it. The environment was depressing and I couldn't handle it. I worked at an adult day program which was rewarding but exhausting. Now I work where I wanted to work all along, at one of the 50 best hospitals in the country. It has been a ride to get here, but I made it. And I am not going to stop here!!

It did initially! I had a horrendous experience at my first LTC facility; it was the only job I've ever walked out of and I swore up and down and backwards that I no longer wanted to be an RN because of that experience. The second facility I worked at was much better and I warmed up to the idea of being an RN again, but then we had this massive shift in management and all of the aides who had worked there for longer than 6-12 months (including me) ended up quitting within a few months of the change. I was falsely accused of accidentally injuring a 104-year-old resident and not reporting it (a very long, sad story in which I even contemplated suicide because I was so distraught over the accusation) due to the new office politics, and I quit a few weeks later with my mind set on being anything other than a nurse.

Then I worked in home care with a single client who was only a few years older than me and had a developmental disability (CP). I just recently had to quit because I moved two hours away, but I ended up realizing that my passion is (and has always been) in nursing. I had to do a little growing up myself and I had to have some bad experiences, but I'm glad I got to have those experiences anyways. I think it will make me a better nurse.

I had to keep at it for three years, but now this fall will be my first semester of nursing school. I'm thrilled! But I do know that LTC will not be where I end up working as an RN - it's not something I can see myself doing forever!

Specializes in LTC, Med-surg.

I actually want to be more of a nurse because of my CNA job. I work in long-term care and thought it would be horrible because of all the stories people told. But, surprisingly, I've grown to love it. On my days off I wish I can work so I can be on the floor taking care of

my residents. I realized as I work more at my facility (which is my first CNA job facility) that I care for my residents and wish to do more. I often even think of ways I can improve on my time management to do some of the things I wish I can do given the amount of patients I have (which is 10-12) and all the other duties I have during the shift.

CNA work is awesome because its direct patient care all the time during the day with very few of the responsibilities and life-death situations that RNs face every day ;-)

I am currently working as a PCT and have no interest whatsoever in being a RN. Sure they make good money, but the responsibilities of nursing are not for me.

Specializes in None yet..
I don't want to be a nurse anymore. I never had any interest in working in a hospital- I only want to deal with elderly. I thought about becoming a nurse a while ago because there's no way i want to make these crappy CNA wages the rest of my life. But the nurses where I work push pills at warp speed twice a day with a mountain of paperwork immediately following. That's not something I want to do. Plus they have to work every other weekend, just like us. So I decided to do PT. They look like they actually enjoy their jobs, they get to spend actual time with the residents and they're not as stressed- plus they apparently can do no wrong. The nurses and CNAs get yelled at for everything but therapy is like the star of the nursing home.

Yipes, this is SO TRUE! I work at a facility that is probably as good as it can get eldercare AND... it's just as you've said. Plus the therapists have the biggest paychecks.

I want to be an RN still, but out of LTC. My facility puts you on the same assignment everyday and I have one whose violent and jumps out of bed nonstop and beats us up, along with one who will total her bed if you don't come the moment she rings. I want to be a labor & delivery nurse. I love nursing, just not LTC.

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